Recognizing our Volunteer Bookkeepers
A few years ago while working for a community organization, it wasn't long before I realized we needed a great deal of help with book keeping. I recruited volunteers, with those skills, from the local accounting school. They did an excellent job. As a way of saying "Thanks" I bought a bunch of fat pencils for each person, tied them with raffier and placed a "thank you" note on them. They loved them and many still have them sitting on their desks today.
Submitted by Marian Wilkins, Regional Coordinator Volunteer Resources, BC Cancer Agency

I felt the best gift we could give our volunteers was a free evening for them and their families in our great facility. The bonus was seeing how easy it was to get staff to volunteer that evening so the volunteers could party. We usually offered some sort of light food in the cafe and had every bit of the center open and free to our volunteers and their friends and families. We always had some sort of food related thank you theme, like Pizza and cake, "Volunteers, thanks for sharing a slice of your time" an ice cream social became, 'OMSI has the scoop on the best volunteers!' Staff truly enjoyed helping out, with the food serving positions usually the job everyone wanted.

The added bonus was hearing staff say the next day how much they enjoyed meeting all the volunteers and seeing how much these people loved our science center. The staff, especially those who didn't work closely with our volunteers, were especially struck by how much our volunteers treasured and valued what they did for us, and how proud they were to "show off" for their families. I almost think the staff looked forward to this yearly event more than some of the volunteers, it was a great way to build camaraderie and a real morale booster. Now, at a new science center, I'm looking forward to continuing this tradition with a new group of volunteers and staff.
Submitted by Marcia Hale, Manager, Volunteer Services, Chabot Observatory and Science Center

Photo Scrapbook
While managing a volunteer program for a social service agency, I worked with many corporate volunteer groups. Our agency had a set of standards that all of our children memorized. I created a thank you certificate with the standards written as an outside border. Thank you and the event name was in the center along with our logo. I left a big space in the middle. Throughout the event we'd capture Polaroid pictures of the volunteers doing their job. Afterwards, I'd use my circle cutter to make a hole in the center where I taped the Polaroid of the volunteer. These thank you certificates were always gratefully accepted as a special token of the event.

For one particularly large event where we had the help of a very dedicated corporate team I created a photo scrapbook of their time with us. I'm an avid scrapbooker so I used fun papers, die cuts, and special lettering to tell the story of this group's involvement. It takes a little bit of time, but when you stack it up against the huge contribution of these volunteers, it's well worth it!
Submitted by Marcia Hale, Manager, Volunteer Services, Chabot Observatory and Science Center